What's Next After the Senate Passed the GENIUS Act
Olivia Capozzalo & Camila Russo
June 18, 2025
gm, Defiers!
Today’s big story:
- The U.S. Senate has passed the stablecoin-focused GENIUS Act. What happens now?
Plus:
- Iranian exchange Nobitex gets hacked for $80 million
- Crypto markets dip on Israel-Iran escalation fears
- JPMorgan reveals “deposit token” product
- Coinbase seeks SEC approval for onchain stocks
- SSV 2.0 and based applications: Decentralized infrastructure for secure, scalable Ethereum staking [SPONSORED]
- How Coinshift is progressing the stablecoin space [SPONSORED]
Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.
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The Senate Just Passed the GENIUS Act. Here’s What’s Next
The U.S. Senate has just passed the GENIUS Act, bringing stablecoins one step closer to definitively taking over payment rails in the world’s biggest economy.
The bill passed with bipartisan support on Monday night, in a 68–30 vote. Eighteen Democrats joined most Republicans in favor. Only two GOP senators voted against it. The result was hailed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), who called it “the most significant digital assets legislation ever to pass the U.S. Senate.”
At The Defiant, we’ve covered this one extensively, but let’s do a quick recap: The GENIUS Act lays the groundwork for legal, federally regulated stablecoins. It lets both banks and non-banks (so, yes, we might see an Amazon Coin, USD-X or Walmart Dollar) issue stables, as long as they meet the requirements. Requirements are that they must be backed 1:1 by safe assets like U.S. Treasuries or cash held in segregated accounts at insured depository institutions or custodians; issuers must honor par value redemption within two business days; issuers have to register with FinCEN and comply with KYC/AML rules; they have to undergo monthly reserve attestations and comply with disclosure requirements for consumers.
This all sounds pretty reasonable, but there are three not-so-small problems. For one, it includes a curious clause that bans members of Congress and their families from profiting off stablecoins, but leaves out the President and First Family. That means Trump, whose USD1 stablecoin reportedly netted him $57 million last year, can continue issuing magic internet money while signing stablecoin policy into law. Not shady at all.
Two, the bill prohibits yield-bearing stablecoins, as that would make the tokens closer to investment products… or so the argument goes. Yield-bearing stablecoins would also directly undercut banks’ entire business model; I imagine several powerful interested parties are pushing for this provision, which benefits banks but harms everyone else.
Three, the bill’s requirements increase compliance costs, raising the barrier to entry, which entrenches larger players and pushes out smaller issuers.
We’ll spill a lot more pixels if and when this thing becomes law. But the TL;DR is this: the GENIUS Act is one step closer to becoming law, and if it does, it will provide the legal foundation to scale stablecoin usage globally.
So, what’s next?
The GENIUS Act now heads to the House of Representatives, where its path is less clear and more political. Even if the House does take it up quickly, there’s no guarantee of smooth sailing. Republicans will likely back the bill, but some Democrats may withhold support unless the conflict-of-interest provision is closed.
There’s also a growing faction in the House focused on limiting Big Tech’s financial reach, and this bill could be seen as an open invitation for the tech industry to gain more power by becoming stablecoin issuers.
To complicate things further, the House has its own version of stablecoin regulation: the STABLE Act. That bill includes broader language around consumer protections and reserve quality, and doesn’t have the Trump loophole. Lawmakers could attempt to merge both bills, or negotiate amendments that bring the two into alignment. That process could take weeks, if not months, unless leadership decides to fast-track the Senate version.
Still, President Trump has said he wants to sign the GENIUS Act before the August recess, giving the House a little over a month to act.
One last thing to watch: if the House passes a different version of the bill, it’ll have to go back to the Senate for reconciliation. That could push the timeline past summer, or even into election season, where everything becomes messier.
In short: the GENIUS Act passed a big milestone, but it’s not law yet. And the next few weeks will determine if we finally get the first major piece of crypto legislation in U.S. history, or a near-miss.
📈 Markets in the last 24 hrs:
| TICKER | VALUE | 24H | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Bitcoin | $104,251 | 0.55 % |
 | Ethereum | $2,492.7 | 1.13 % |
 | XRP | $2.14 | -0.46 % |
 | BNB | $640.11 | -0.21 % |
 | Solana | $144.41 | -1.25 % |
This is the news that mattered in the past 24 hrs
- Nobitex, the largest Iranian crypto exchange, has been hacked for $81 million as a cyber front emerges in the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict. Hacker group Gonjeshke Darande has claimed responsibility for the attack.
- Markets are in the red, with total crypto market cap losing 6% and BTC trading near $104,400, driven by escalating tensions between Israel and Iran.
- JPMorgan just revealed a new product, JPMD, which it calls a “deposit token,” representing bank deposits on-chain; the product will be tested in a pilot transfer from JPMorgan to Coinbase on Layer 2 blockchain Base; the financial giant filed a trademark for JPMD on Sunday, but details remained unclear.
- Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, is seeking approval from the SEC to offer tokenized equities to its users.
🎬WATCH
In the latest episode of The Defiant Podcast, Cami spoke with Sandy Kaul, Head of Innovation at Franklin Templeton, about the future of tokenized money market funds, DeFi-powered supply chains, how evolving crypto infrastructure is reshaping TradFi, and a lot more.
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